September 2, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update, Video Perspective, World News
Published on Aug 19, 2012 by YaBasta5000
#NoNATO
US Activists Confront NATO War Machine
Chicago Summit 2012
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June 3, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Editorial, Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics
by Michelle Hill – occupynewhampshire.org/2012/05/29/freedom-of-speech/
While at the first rally, the one sponsored by National Nurses United (the union which paid for the buses to get us to and from Chicago), I found my brand new phone didn’t work. I couldn’t get or receive texts or phone calls. So I asked one of the police officers why our phones were being blocked. He responded with “there are too many people trying to use their phones at once. No one is blocking them.” Frankly, I didn’t believe him. Later in the week I overheard two officers talking. One was saying how glad she was cellphones had been blocked. The other nodded his head. I believed this officer to be telling the truth.
Unfortunately, blocking cellphones became the norm.
By blocking cellphones live tweets weren’t sent, people couldn’t call one another, and there was a dearth of Facebook status updates. It seems to me by blocking our phones, the police (or whomever was the guilty party) curtailed Freedom of Speech since phones are no longer just for voice communications.
Speech is our most basic freedom. To curtail it, for any reason, is not only unconstitutional, it’s a sign of fascism. For city police to participate in such behavior is totally unacceptable. For any police to participate in the silencing of speech is totally unacceptable.
I wondered why my brand new phone didn’t work but others did. I saw cops and paramedics on their phones. I saw other Occupiers on their phones. So maybe the technology used worked only on new phones. I’m not that tech savvy so I can’t answer my own question. But what I can say is I felt stifled. I could not reach the woman I was supposed to meet so we never connected that day. I felt uninformed without my twitter updates. When the rally moved I couldn’t find where the climate people went because of the dearth of text messages. Read the rest of this entry →
May 26, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update, Video Perspective, World News
Published on May 26, 2012 by natoindymedia
At the Chicago NATO Summit, after the rally off Cermak and Michigan, May 20th 2012. Police surrounded protesters and box off one group from the rest of the rally. Without any dispersal order, the police leading with batons and violence, started pressing thousands of protesters through a narrow exit. Towards the end of the video a independant journalist is attacked after filming police violence, his camera broken in the incident.
May 24, 2012 in Editorial, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update, World News
Tim Pool Seeks Monopoly on Audio Broadcast in the Event Data Services Go Down - NATO Protest 2012
Having recently worked in and around the NATO protests in Chicago, we’re surprised to learn that self professed “fair and balanced” reporter @timcast , Tim Pool was trying to corner the market and get : A monopoly on audio broadcast in the event that data services went down and people were being prevented from live streaming. This report was witnessed by several other individuals.
Many people, from all over the world, thought they would be jamming or shut down internet and cellphones for months leading up to this event in Chicago, rumors had been circulating through various circles. It seemed to many people, that it would be standard practice for an event like this where military helicopters were flying through the loop in DT Chicago between skyscrapers, just weeks in advance, on training exercises.
The rumor that was floating around among many video streamers was that data services would be down during the protest, but that cell phone service itself would remain intact. There was a lot of speculation as to what this would mean, and many people [including Tim] involved in media efforts, were trying to figure out ways to work together towards solutions.
Tim was involved in trying to arrange for special favors, in his exact words, ”…then I could have a monopoly [on audio]…” This would have been broadcast in the event that data services went down and live video streaming was not an option.
We can also confirm that the independent media center was told they could no longer use his [ Tim 's ] video stream to re-broadcast coverage of NATO as they had been doing from various live video feeds from everyone around the country in attendance. There was not a single other streamer that had a problem with being re-broadcast. In fact, most people we talked to that were uploading video live or via other means were happy to freely share, so that the whole story could be seen from multiple points of view.
May 24, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Documentary, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update, World News
Stories From A Street Medic Involved In NATO Protests In Chicago, May 2012all day i’ve wanted to be left alone, yet needed to be around others.
i don’t remember how i ended up at the front of the lines.
the first anti-capitalist march i went on was proof enough that my instinct is to cut away, dart through the crowd, and get to the front as swiftly as possible to deescalate the situation as quickly as possible.
or at least be there to provide any services within the skill-set of an energy mosh-medic.
so i guess i arrived there on auto-pilot.
be aware, i did not panic through all of this.
when they (cpd) first started shoving us back, i felt confused and in danger.
my perception snapped into slow motion.
(though there remain some gaps in my memory of it all)
what i noticed in those first split seconds was the commanding officer stepping forward. walking down the line. assaulting every other protester in passing.
prepping the army. leading by example. Read the rest of this entry →
May 24, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update, Video Perspective, World News
The two faces of NATO: PR spin versus video reality
Growing body of videos and eyewitness accounts in wake of NATO summit exposes vast police violence to defend military arm of 1%. See videos below.
While the Obama and Emanuel administrations are congratulating themselves on a public relations coup, NATO protesters are documenting the wave of police violence unleashed on them in recent days — particularly Sunday, when protesters sought to exercise a right they thought they had but didn’t: to speak truth to power.
City and federal officials have doggedly stuck to the spin about a dangerous band of ‘anarchists’ who started trouble on Sunday. But it’s clear from the videos below — and dozens more that have begun to surface on the web — that the only thugs in black on May 20 were the police. And the police unloaded, narrowly missing 75-year-old peace protester Nan Wigmore, who was caught in the crush at the front line of the police violence.
The harrowing scenes in the first two videos below, shot by Substance News contributor John Kugler, show police hammering on protesters with billy clubs and their hands, feet and bodies. Protesters clearly shout “There’s nowhere to go!” as the police line wails on them to push them away from the intersection of Cermak and Michigan. The protesters’ goal? To take their opposition to NATO to the summit itself — a goal denied by the protest ‘permit’ which the City of Chicago and the Obama administration ultimately ‘granted.’ That permit failed to meet even the minimum request of some organizers to be within ‘site and sound’ of the government bureaucrats’ deliberations.
Chicagoan John Whitfield spoke with his neighbor, Substance News reporter and videographer John Kugler, who shot the video of the police assault — and was attacked himself by the police. Cops struck Kugler, who was wisely wearing a helmet, four times on the head; Kugler also lost a shoe in the assault.
“Everything was fine until riot police kettled protesters and created chaos,” wrote Kugler in his Substance account. Read the rest of this entry →
May 20, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Update, Video Perspective, World News
Published on May 19, 2012 by natoindymedia
The first of three marches on Saturday focused attention on the closures of half of the city of Chicago’s neighborhood mental health clinics as 2-3 thousand people congregated in front of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home at 4228 N. Hermitage.
Around 3:30pm, Saturday, approximately 1,000 marchers gathered at Daley Plaza to protest the raid of a Bridgeport home and terrorism charges levied against three anti-NATO activists — a group dubbed the NATO 3, inspiring a currently trending campaign on twitter with the keyword #NATO3.
A third march, the Anti-Capitalist march, had been called to meet at the statue commemorating the international labor movement in Haymarket Square at Randolph and Desplaines on the Near West Side.
Several hundred people from the #NATO3 group marched to the South Loop, and in attempting to meet the “Anti-Capitalist” march at Haymarket were divided and redirected by the Chicago Police Department into several smaller groups. By the time the disparate marches converged near Randolph and Desplaines around 6:30pm, the police department had repeatedly stopped the marchers at intersections as the different groups attempted to reach each other, walking through the closed-off downtown streets in 90 degree heat.
One march headed west on Harrison Street over the south branch of the Chicago River, a second became kettled at State and Congress, while the third mustered at 175 N. Desplaines, and proceeded south towards the others. After converging near Madison and Jefferson, the larger gathering moved north, then east, to turn south onto State Street, when double lines of police on foot and bicycles again met, stopped, and kettled the crowd of approximately 1,500, arresting several, while using batons to beat several more. The crowd worked its way south on State Street, and as it neared Taylor, it was again hemmed in, and in response to some provocation (likely the rapid brandishing of metal batons by officers) the noise level in the crowd increased. Around ten people in the assembly were beaten.
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